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Friday, March 16, 2018

Bring Me Their Hearts by Sara Wolf ~ Author Interview

A lush, unique new fantasy trilogy about a girl tasked with stealing the prince’s heart…literally, from the New York Times bestselling author of the Lovely Vicious series.

Zera is a Heartless – the immortal, unageing soldier of a witch. Bound to the witch Nightsinger ever since she saved her from the bandits who murdered her family, Zera longs for freedom from the woods they hide in. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger’s control, she serves the witch unquestioningly.

Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a Prince’s heart in exchange for her own, with one addendum; if she’s discovered infiltrating the court, Nightsinger will destroy her heart rather than see her tortured by the witch-hating nobles.

Crown Prince Lucien d’Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him – every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his darkly handsome side. No one can challenge him – until the arrival of Lady Zera. She’s inelegant, smart-mouthed, carefree, and out for his blood. The Prince’s honor has him quickly aiming for her throat.

So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all.

1. I am intrigued by the idea of a heartless. How did this idea come to you?

I'm a big sucker for gothic romances, and those always have a distinct 'monster' in them, in the form of monstrous deeds, monstrous secrets, or sometimes actual monsters! If you've read any of my other books, you know I love to write dark, heavy angst books that delve into the realities of the cruel things we do to others or ourselves, either intentionally or unintentionally. Facing that darkness in my writing is one of my favorite things to do, so I HAD to have monsters in my fantasy. Heartless are those monsters - I thought them up by asking myself 'what if someone couldn't die, and was forced to fight for someone without a choice in the matter'? What would happen to their psyche, their emotions, their whole character? And thus the Heartless were born!

2. Your characters names are interesting. Zera and Lucien. Where do your character names come from?

Believe it or not, I've got a list of cool names I find or think up. Lucien is a name I love because of the 'luce' sound, which I think means light in latin? And I love that connection. Zera was a name I've had stored for two years! It's a simple name, but it has a fantasy flair to it, and I'm a huge fan of 'z' names, they sound so unique and cool. Sometimes, if I'm really out of name ideas or my list gets thin, I poke around on baby name websites. Don't all authors? Seriously, those sites are such a huge timesuck, I end up spending more time on those instead of writing!

3. I love that the Prince hates the royal court. I love him already. Is it too spoilery to ask why he hates it?

Not at all! Lucien hates it primarily because of the way the Vetrisian court works - a lot of subtlety and appearence-pandering. Since his sister died, he's spent a lot of time wandering the streets of Vetris, where the common people live, and with every day that passed he came to realize just how deep the divide was between rich and poor - and just how unfair this divide is. So he starts to hate the court and the things that go on in it, because he knows just how privileged the court is compared to the common people. He also hates it because marrying young is a big part of Vetrisian nobility, and he's had candidates shoved at him pretty much since he reached pubescence. He doesn't like choices being made for him, and his father the King pretty much makes them all, which is another reason why he hates the court.

4. And Zera's parents. I'm wondering about them after reading the blurb. Are they in the picture or is she alone?

Zera has no parents - they were killed by bandits. She was too, but a witch found her and resurrected her as a Heartless. It's a huge scar on Zera's mind, as she blames herself for leading her parents to be killed; the bandits set a trap with a little boy as bait and while her parents were wary, Zera insisted they help him. And thus the trap was sprung, and her parents died. She blames herself for all of it, unhealthily, but the moment she was resurrected she was so consumed by grief and revenge, she killed the bandits, too. Those deaths weigh on her mind as well, and she tries her hardest to avoid the pain by joking around, by taking things lightly, even though she's the most scarred of them all.

5. Can you tell us one thing about Zera and Lucien that we don't learn in the book?

Sure! This might make some more sense if you read the book, but Lucien has dreamed of a tree before. He also knows the name of every shopkeeper in Vetris. All of them! He's got a very good memory for faces/names. A little something about Zera we don't learn about in the book is harder, considering we're in her head all the time, but a fun fact is Zera is actually left-handed!